Credit card interest scams get more interesting

Callers stealing numbers to disguise themselves

Audrey Ohl got worried when her caller ID showed Woodlawn Fire Department in South Whitehall Township was ringing her phone. One of her children lives in that area.

"I thought, Oh my gosh, what's happening? Did something happen at their house and they're calling me?" said Ohl, of Allentown.

Fearing the worst, she answered the phone. She was relieved to learn the fire company wasn't calling about an emergency. But she was even more disturbed that it wasn't the fire company calling at all.

"It was one of the scams to lower the interest on your charge cards," Ohl said.

Those calls are sleazy enough, targeting desperate consumers with false promises to reduce the interest rates on their credit cards — for an upfront fee, of course.

Now the snake oil salesmen are hijacking the phone numbers of local businesses and residents to trick people into picking up the phone. It's a trick known as "spoofing," which for some crazy reason is legal in some instances, though I don't believe that would be the case with these calls.

The Federal Trade Commission has shut down — on paper at least — several of these operations by obtaining settlements under which they've agreed not to make robocalls, violate the Do Not Call law or misrepresent their services. Some victims have gotten money back through the settlements.

Those efforts haven't stopped the calls, but business (if you want to call it that) must have fallen off after these interest-rate scams got the publicity that they deserved, including from The Watchdog. So the callers needed a new tactic to get people on the line, and spoofing is easy to do with a computer or cards similar to calling cards. The calls used to show up on caller ID with names like "Cardholder Services," which people knew to avoid.

Ohl said she promptly called Woodlawn fire company and explained what had happened. She said the man she talked to asked her to call police and report it, which she did.

I spoke with Ron Stofko, steward of Woodlawn Social Club, which is affiliated with the fire company. He took Ohl's call. He said it's the only one he's aware of.

But the fire company isn't the only local number that's been ripped off. Ohl also has received the calls under the name and number of an Allentown woman she didn't know.

During one call last week, she navigated through the robocall's prompts and got a representative on the line who identified herself only as "Kelly." Ohl asked Kelly why she was calling from the Allentown woman's phone number.

"I told her that I reported their calls to the police, although I didn't, and to the newspaper," Ohl said. That didn't seem to faze Kelly.

Ohl called the woman whose number was spoofed to warn her. I talked to her, too. She's 79 and didn't want her name published because she doesn't want to be targeted for other frauds. But she told me she's pretty sure why her number was selected as a front for these crooked calls.

She, too, had been getting the annoying calls offering her an opportunity to lower her credit card interest rates. She couldn't take it anymore and tore into one caller.

"Get me off this list," she told them. "You're a scam. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

She assumes that made her a patsy when they were looking for a phone number to hijack.

I can see that happening, just as I can see why a fire company's number would be selected — for the fear factor. Other spoofed numbers, though, seem to be chosen randomly.

Chuck Ballard of Emmaus has received several of these calls, too. His caller ID said they were coming from a local car dealer.

"Not only are these guys inflicting pain and suffering on seniors, they also damage local businesses now," Ballard said. "I think it is long past time for a federal law to prohibit a false caller ID number on any phone call."

While it sure seems like something that should be illegal, Congress thought otherwise.

A federal law enacted in 2010 prohibits caller ID spoofing "with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value." But Congress didn't outlaw spoofing entirely, noting there might be honest uses, such as a domestic violence shelter wanting to conceal its real number.

But fraudulent spoofing seems to be on the rise, according to a warning last week from the Better Business Bureau that cited the interest-rate calls as an example.

"With many people rejecting calls from unfamiliar numbers, scammers are increasingly posing as familiar businesses, government organizations or people," the BBB warned.

Last month, I wrote about a Nazareth woman who was a spoofing victim. Her number was being used by a shady roofing contractor trolling for business.

Keep this in mind when your phone rings. You can't always believe your caller ID, which is why you never should provide personal information to someone who calls you, even if your phone says it's your bank or physician. Hang up and call them to verify the call. Then you can feel safe answering their questions.

The Watchdog is published Thursdays and Sundays. Contact me at watchdog@mcall.com, 610-841-2364 or The Morning Call, 101 N. Sixth St., Allentown, PA, 18101. I'm on Twitter @mcwatchdog and Facebook at Morning Call Watchdog.